


Death: The undiscovered country

by smaragdbird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, M/M, Resurrection, Secrets, bringing the love of your life back from the dead, more a friendship than a romance story, natasha is nick's friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 18:11:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19405528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: Natasha expected Coulson's death to have an impact on Fury, after all they had been married for decades and in as many countries as possible.She hadn't expected this though.





	Death: The undiscovered country

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phnelt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phnelt/gifts).



> So I really loved your prompts regarding Natasha's pov on Nick's and Phil's relationship and ran with that, especially since I felt that Nick could use some emotional support in what was probably the worst situation in his life

Natasha wasn’t sure what she had expected in the aftermath of thwarting Loki’s invasion of Earth but it wasn’t this. Sure, some things she had expected: hushing up that the Security Council had been prepared to nuke New York City, Stark and Banner riding into the sunset together metaphorically speaking, Thor returning to Asgard with his brother. Even handing over the tesseract to him didn’t surprise her all that much. If it really was a calling beacon for the wider universe, then the last battle had shown that Earth had a long way yet to go before it could join the intergalactic community.

No, what she hadn’t been expecting was Nick’s change in behaviour.

Natasha had known him for more than a decade by now, probably knew him best outside of Phil and Carol. She had been at every single of Nick’s and Phil’s weddings since they had made it a game to get married each time a country legalised same-sex marriage. 

(Carol had quit attending after the third one, citing that weddings weren’t an emergency and only to call her back if they were legal everywhere in the US.)

She could have understood if Nick was trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, that he hadn’t tossed his husband’s blood soaked, highly prised trading cards onto a table to motivate two stubborn men into working together to save the Earth. 

(The morning before Captain America was supposed to come to the helicarrier, she had stood next to Phil in the locker room while he had sorted through his cards, trying to decide which ones he wanted to ask Steve Rogers to sign. She had teased him for it. Her friend, who had less than a day to live and she had mocked him for -).

Even though Natasha wasn’t great at comforting people, she had been prepared for grief or stoicism on Nick’s part. She hadn’t been prepared for this nervous energy he was radiating as if he had somewhere else to be, as if there was another pressing mission that needed his attention.

And then there were the disappearances. 

Natasha had always used words like weapons since she had been brought up to think of everything as a weapon including herself. She already found it hard to talk about her feelings and was even worse at offering comforting words to others. Her preferred method of comfort was to be around people, close and quiet but usually without touching them.

Outside of some scheduled and specific appointments, Nick disappeared completely. And Natasha would have respected that if he hadn’t brushed off Clint about the funeral. During the conversation Nick had looked at his watch no less than four times and his responses to Clint’s questions had been curt and vague, which -.

(Nick had helped to keep Clint’s family and home from the Shield records. Clint had been to most but not all of Nick’s and Phil’s weddings, based on whether he and Laura wanted to have a vacation in the country in question.)

Phil deserved a funeral. He hadn’t just been Nick’s husband; he had been her friend and Clint’s and Maria’s and many others. Even Tony had asked and she hadn’t been able to give him an answer.

So she decided to follow Nick. Something was wrong, something that had to do with Phil in one way or another, she could feel it.

Nick had been a spy for decades and knew how to avoid being followed but Natasha had been raised as one, her skills outmatched him.

(The last straw had been her attempt to find Phil’s body because if Nick was dragging his feet on organising a funeral, then she would do it. Following the paper trail had led her to a location but not to Phil’s actual body and she knew Nick would have never let that happen.)

The building was inconspicuous just like Shield liked their safe houses and secret facilities. Natasha considered breaking in but she also knew that without more information, she would probably get caught.

So instead she marched to the front door and asked to speak to Nick Fury.

“Natasha”, he sounded resigned when he said her name and all of the nervous energy seemed to have left him, replaced by the kind of bone deep exhaustion that came from putting too much strain on your mind instead of your body.

“Where’s Phil’s body, Nick? What is going on?” She asked, despite knowing that he might not give her an answer after all. No one, not even Phil, knew all of Nick’s secrets.

Nick looked at her like he had the first time they had met – as if he was weighing her soul to decide whether she deserved paradise or perdition – and eventually tilted his head towards the door he had come through. “Come on.”

The secret facility looked more like a lab than a hospital and they only met a handful of people, mostly guards, while Nick led her through a corridor, up a staircase and to another door. She could hear a voice on the other side and muffled screaming.

Her blood ran cold in her veins as Nick opened the door for her and let her walk into an observation room above an operation theatre.

“Let me die. Please, let me die.”

Phil’s voice and that was Phil’s body in the middle of the room and Phil’s brain, open and exposed, while a machine poked around in it.

Natasha had seen what humans could do one another, had witnessed cruelties beyond many people’s worst nightmares, but this one was beyond hers. “What have you done?” She whispered.

“I made a choice.”

“LET ME DIE.”

“He won’t remember any of this.” Natasha wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure, her or himself. “He’ll wake up once it’s done and he’ll be fine.”

“Have you done this before?”

“On volunteers. It was Phil’s project up until a few months ago.”

“What happened to those volunteers.”

“They’re alive. And healthy as far as we can tell.”

“And?”

“Please let me die.” Phil’s voice was reduced to nothing but a whimper.

Nick’s jaw clenched. “We had to erase their memories. The resurrection is too painful. Phil recommended for the whole project to be shut down.”

“That’s not like you, not to listen to him.”

“It’s also unlike him to get stabbed through the chest, yet here we are.”

“Would you have ever told us?”

“Eventually. I’ve not been thinking that far, Natasha.”

Something in his voice made her reach out to him and when Nick turned towards her, she pulled him into a hug. After a moment’s hesitation, she could feel him relax because he needed this as much as she did. 

As she pulled back, Natasha said, “I heard Denmark is going to legalise same-sex marriage soon. June wedding in Copenhagen?”

“Yeah, that sounds – “Nick’s voice caught and he cleared his throat, “that sounds like a plan.”


End file.
